Episode 1 Wild Burma: Nature's Lost Kingdom

Burma...

..closed to the outside world for five decades.

A mysterious land...

..a land of secrets.

Nearly half of Burma is covered in forest.

It's thought to be a sanctuary to some of the rarest and most exotic wildlife on earth.

Yet only 3% of Burma's forests are protected.

As Burma steps towards democracy,

it must decide the fate of these forests.

Now an expedition team of scientists and film-makers

has been granted unprecedented access.

It is better than I could ever have imagined.

Their mission?

To prove beyond doubt that these unique forests need to be protected.

It's a big snake, it's huge!

They will search for animals

that elsewhere hover on the edge of extinction.

Yes, yes!

And present their findings to the Burmese Government.

I happen to know that this is a spectacular find.

What they discover could change the future of Burma's wilds forever.

This country is rumoured to be home to a treasure trove of wildlife.

This is the very first time that any film team

have been allowed in to find out what's going on down there.

Burma is the largest and least explored country

in mainland Southeast Asia.

A region that boasts some of the most diverse forests on the planet.

Today, 95% of Southeast Asia's forests have disappeared.

Burma contains half of what is left.

Its forests cover an area larger than the United Kingdom.

They may be home to some of Asia's most endangered species.

Now an expedition will venture deep into Burma's jungle.

Wildlife film-makers Gordon Buchanan and Justine Evans have joined forces

with biologists Ross Piper and Chris Wemmer.

Alongside them, a team of Burmese wildlife experts.

They will compile a detailed wildlife survey and capture footage

to convince the Burmese Government to protect these forests.

For the last 50 years, Burma has very much been this forbidden land,

and when it comes to the natural habitat, it's a forgotten land.

In the last few hundred years,

the lifestyle of the people,

the habitat in this area is pretty much unchanged.

Burma, also known as Myanmar,

has suffered half a century of oppressive military rule.

It became one of the most isolated and impoverished countries in the world.

Today, three-quarters of the population

make their living from the land.

You get a real sense, driving through this part of Burma,

how little has changed here.

What we might find when it comes to the wildlife is this time capsule,

other animals that are being lost elsewhere in Southeast Asia

could be living in good numbers right here.

The expedition team has two months on the ground.

They will cover as much of the country as they can.

They start in western Burma,

in search of Southeast Asia's largest mammal, the Asian elephant.

In the last century,

up to 90% of the world's Asian elephants have disappeared.

Finding healthy populations of elephants

would make a powerful case for preserving these forests.

The amazing thing is that it is almost perfect elephant habitat,

but the fact is

very, very little is known about the elephants that actually live here.

We do know that they are here,

but what we have no idea of is how many there are.

Biologist Ross Piper has never been to this part of Southeast Asia before.

Where we are at the moment, it does look good for elephants,

but we really have to get into the areas that are away from these roads,

that are away from human activity,

and only then will we see signs of elephants

and hopefully see the animals themselves.

Camerawoman Justine Evans knows filming elephants here

will be a challenge.

I've filmed Asian elephants before in other parts of Southeast Asia,

but they've always been in these tiny pockets of forest within national parks.

Above everything, elephants need space.

Here, they have that space and that's why it's such an important area.

It just feels like it's got a lot of great potential.

Burma's elephants are under threat.

Throughout Asia, they're hunted and persecuted by humans.

That's a problem.

Elephants live in close-knit family groups.

The young learn their survival skills from the old.

If the older elephants are killed, the whole herd breaks down.

The team knows the elephants are here,

but to make the strongest case for their protection

they must find herds with every generation intact.

They need to find groups with calves.

Their destination, the Rakine Yoma mountains...

..a vast swathe of almost impenetrable jungle.

Its isolation protects the elephants from poachers.

If the team can find intact herds anywhere, it will be here.

Biologist Chris Wemmer hopes these mountains could be a stronghold for the Asian elephant.

What we want to do is determine if there's a healthy population,

a viable population of elephants in this part of the range,

because if there is,

there's a very good chance that the forest is healthy north of here

and that it will also support additional herds of elephant,

so we could be looking at an extensive range

that has a large population of elephants along most of its length.

Chris has been working in Burma for decades,

but this is the first time he's had access to this mountain range.

It's a unique opportunity.

It's also a challenge.

The forest is dense and elephants are shy.

I've been coming to Burma for 25 years

and I've never seen a wild elephant.

So our work is cut out for us.

To find the elephants, the team must first get to know their habitat.

Chris wants to show Gordon the lie of the land...

..from the air.

Wow! Look at that.

-That's stunning, isn't it?

-Boy, that's something!

This forest is unbroken for 1,000 miles.

With the right protection, it could be the world's most important sanctuary for the Asian elephant.

Somewhere like this is incredibly special in Southeast Asia,

because you've got this massive range that stretches over 1,000 miles.

Absolutely. You know, every time I stare out across

this kind of landscape, it just stirs my imagination.

The truth is that so little is known about this range.

That's just it, there's all kinds of secrets and mysteries in there,

that's what we want to find out about.

The foothills of this inaccessible range are already developed

pushing elephants into evermore remote territory.

So, on the ground, where do we start looking?

I would say we go up these hollows, up into the hills,

and we're going to look for elephant tracks.

And I don't mean footprints.

I mean a four-foot wide area,

which is basically their...their own highway, their own thoroughfare,

that's what we're going to be looking for,

and we'll follow those to the feeding areas.

It's not going to be easy.

It's a daunting task that lies before us.

In the last century,

Asian elephants have lost 95% of their former range.

This isn't their only problem.

Farmers kill them to protect their land,

poachers hunt them for their ivory.

And those that survive face another threat -

illegal capture for the tourist trade.

So, what's this?

What we're seeing here is an example of the illegal trade in Asian elephants.

This is an animal which is entering the tourist trade in Thailand.

It was illegally captured, probably in Burma.

It is being broken of its spirit

so it can be trained to beg in the streets

and to give joyrides to tourists, that's what it's all about.

Oh, God, I hate to see that, oh!

To break a wild-caught elephant, you are...you are breaking its spirit.

Its spirit, yes.

Vet and Asian elephant expert Khyne U Mar

has fought for Burma's elephants for decades.

So how long does this animal have to go through this process?

Normally, it takes about a month to finish this breaking procedure.

So the calf's dependency on mother is as long as about five or seven years,

so if they are, you know, separated from the mother in a very early age,

it makes a lot of psychological stress and strain and stress for the young calf.

I suppose it's an enslavement

because this animal is going to spend its life in chains.

Right, in chains, yes, yes.

It's estimated that up to a quarter of all the elephants born in Burma

end up as playthings for tourists.

Without protection,

Burma's elephants could be gone in just 30 years.

The team begins its first full day with a simple challenge.

There are elephants out there, but where?

Here...

-1-10.

-1-10.

Aung Kyaw, what is the pattern of movement here?

The elephant moving in this area using the Aungnyo River,

and then moving along the Aungnyo River and then to the ridge.

Chris Wemmer and his old friend, park ranger, Aung Kyaw,

piece together information from recent sightings.

-So, the feeding areas are both in the valleys?

-In the valleys.

The river valleys and on the ridges.

On the ridge, yes, there are a lot of bamboo and wild banana.

That's why they like this area very much.

They've identified the area they need to search.

Now the team must split up.

Justine will stick to the river valleys,

where elephants relax in the heat of the day.

Gordon will head for their night-time feeding grounds on the ridge,

six miles from camp.

To find the elephants,

the team will rely on the expertise of the local Chin community.

If I was to go out here looking for elephants,

I could walk for days and days and maybe eventually I'd find them.

The good thing about elephants is they're big, they can be noisy,

and they do leave a lot of tracks and signs behind them,

but Moko here has spent the last few days looking for elephants.

How far are the elephants travelling each day?

While Gordon heads for the ridge, Justine searches the valleys.

It's the dry season

and the elephants will stay close to water.

Hey, look at this, this is really good.

See this plant here?

You can see the way it's been knocked over.

And this is classic elephant.

And you can see where the trunk's probably come round

and then the foot has come in to kick this plant,

and it hasn't been eaten,

but it's been definitely knocked over by an elephant.

And then over here a bigger one.

Yeah, this is definitely elephant,

and you can actually see footprints in there.

That's great, first signs of ele.

The team knows there are elephants here.

But they need to find out whether these are healthy, breeding herds.

Gordon hopes camera traps will reveal this.

Obviously, when you're siting a camera trap

you've got to have the animal that you're after in mind,

and that has a huge bearing on where you put it.

Camera traps will capture footage of anything that triggers their movement sensor, day or night.

So, if I put this camera trap here, for example,

I could say with absolute certainty if an elephant came down this path, it would see this.

They're incredibly intelligent animals,

and what it would do, it would stop, it would put out its trunk,

it would have a sniff,

and very easily it would put that huge powerful trunk against it

and it would smash this thing to smithereens.

So what I'm wanting to do is put it up a little bit higher,

and the thinking is that if an elephant's coming down this slope,

it's going to be concentrating on the path,

and it's not going to see the camera trap up there.

So, one armed and ready to go.

Down in the valley,

the trackers have led Justine to a spot the elephants visit regularly.

Great. You can really see a clear ele trail here.

These local Chin guides have shown me this beautiful elephant trail

you can see here that's leading up to a salt lick,

and the idea is that they're going to come here to mine for salt.

They need it in their diet just as people do, and they just don't get enough from the vegetation.

It's amazing the lengths that elephants go to to get salt.

And here you can see they've been digging away at the soil.

You see there where he's been lying down.

Elephants have been here recently so Justine may be too late.

How often do the eles come to this salt lick?

-Once a month?

-Yeah.

So is it a dynamic that they're moving around their territory

and that they may come for a few days and then move on

and then return in a few weeks' time, that sort of situation?

So we have a chance, they might come?

Yeah, yeah.

Camera traps allow Justine to film in several different places at once.

With luck, they'll tell her how many elephants live here,

and, crucially, if they have young.

If the team finds elephants thriving here,

then they could be thriving throughout the range.

This gives Chris hope for the elephants' future.

Whoa! There it is, look at that!

What a spread, magnificent!

What's encouraging about this setting, this landscape,

is that it goes on and on and on...

We're towards the south,

towards the end of a stretch that goes on for hundreds and hundreds of miles.

These forests have survived centuries of exploitation.

In 1824, Britain colonised Burma and ran it as a trading outpost.

They used wild-caught elephants to plunder forests for their valuable teak...

..until World War II...

..when Japan invaded Burma.

Bombs ravaged the same forests the British Empire had plundered.

After the war, Burma gained its independence.

Then, in 1962, a military coup wrested power from the people

and plunged Burma into five decades of oppression and isolation.

Since then, these forests have lain largely undisturbed.

One of the reasons this is still here is because Burma has been closed off,

it's been sealed to the outside world for so long

following the Second World War.

It was just cut off and everything stayed the way it was.

It existed in a time warp, so to speak.

All that's starting to change, of course,

but that time warp has done one important thing -

it's saved all of this for the future.

The forest has survived intact.

Now the team hopes to prove that elephant herds have, too.

Ross has travelled eight miles northwest of base camp.

So far, he hasn't found any elephants.

But there is evidence that they're here.

Finally, look at this!

We've been walking for six hours,

and we've managed to find some fresh elephant dung.

There's...

This was probably...this was probably deposited only a few hours ago,

still quite warm, actually.

You can see how, you know, the food has barely been digested.

Elephants have a very inefficient digestive system.

Probably only about half of what they eat actually gets digested and absorbed.

Flies all over it.

Elephant dung is a rich source of food for other animals.

You have to remember this is a key process.

The fact that all these creatures colonise this dung,

take all the nutrients and energy back into the soil

where it can be used by the plants again to grow.

You know, that's a key element to how these forests work.

Without that, you know, all these plants would die,

if these nutrients aren't recycled continually back from the elephant eating them,

passing it through its digestive tract out on to the soil,

and they get back taken back into the soil to nurture yet more plant growth.

You know, it's those cycles... it's those cycles that keep every ecosystem ticking over.

This adds to the team's evidence,

but it's not proof of breeding herds.

The team is four days in and the pressure is mounting.

They have proof that elephants are out there.

But they're no closer to filming them,

or finding evidence of healthy, breeding herds.

Gordon, you got a minute?

All they can do is keep going.

We have your assignment.

-You've got a six-kilometre march before you.

-OK.

Based on the best intelligence from the Chin trackers,

they're probably up on the ridge feeding this evening.

They're going to come down to the water late this afternoon.

You need to be set up and ready for them.

After taking advice from the trackers,

Justine is trying an old Burmese trick.

Elephant cake.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to mix up a load of tamarind,

which is a type of tropical fruit and a big bag of salt,

and I'm going to take it into the salt lick area.

Hopefully, the elephants will smell it and want to come in.

Phwoar!

This is apparently a tried-and-tested recipe...

Smells rotten, though.

While Gordon heads for the ridge, Ross follows a different lead.

Elephants have been sighted near the village of Taung Lay.

If the rumours are true, there could be a second herd in the area.

Ross heads downriver with elephant expert Khyne U Mar to talk to the locals.

So, I'm thinking this is the best place to put the elephant cake.

Hopefully, they'll get some sort of scent of the tamarind.

As Gordon heads up the ridge,

head ranger Aung Kyaw spots movement across the valley.

Do you see an elephant?

Look!

There's moving.

Just directly over the valley here...

-Do you think there's an elephant in there?

-Yeah.

-TRUMPETING

-Yeah, I can hear it, I can hear it.

According to Aung Kyaw,

it's possible to get within five metres of an elephant here

and never actually see it.

Why is such an enormous animal so hard to find?

Gordon will need a good vantage point

if he's to catch them on camera.

Right on top of the ridge, the highest point, and this is my tree.

This is... I'm going to climb up and spend the night.

Gordon will film from a specially rigged tree platform.

We know that there are elephants just down in the valley.

The hope is that they will come back up on to the ridge tonight.

This could be his best hope of seeing elephants.

In Taung Lay, Ross quickly discovers the stories of elephants

are more than just rumours.

They've been coming into the village itself.

He talks to Taung Lay's headman, U Kin Toe.

Can we find out why they fear elephants,

what is it about elephants that makes them scared?

THEY SPEAK IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

Elephants are very big and when they come in with group,

nobody can do anything. They just have to run away,

and they have no power to, you know, make them, you know, scared off.

And how do they drive them out when they do come into the village?

THEY SPEAK IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

Once they enter our compound, we just shout.

-Shout?

-Shout and then kind of...

Sounds good!

Shout and then drive them.

So sometimes they turn away and sometimes they charge us.

HE SPEAKS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE

There is a place called Tandabin

which is about three miles from here.

They found elephants that they call...

THEY SPEAK IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

Oh, right, they said in groups, they live in groups.

It's exactly what Ross was hoping for.

A large group could well mean a breeding herd.

On the ridge, Gordon prepares for an uncomfortable night.

His platform is 30 metres off the ground.

He hopes he'll see the elephants without them noticing him.

Elephants live in tight family groups.

They are extremely protective of their young.

If they smell Gordon, they will stay away.

So he plans to camp up here for the next 48 hours.

It won't be easy.

The platform is barely large enough for him and his camera.

He must stay constantly alert, and wait.

It does feel like a very unusual thing to do.

Being up a tree in the dead of night waiting for a herd of elephants to walk past.

It's not normal, really.

The thing that's niggling me is whether I'm giving off any scent,

whether this whole process of climbing the tree,

disturbing this area for a period of time,

maybe that's enough to put the elephants off.

Despite their huge size elephants can be incredibly nervous,

and if they suspect there's something not quite right,

they'll avoid an area.

I just don't know if that's what's happening at the moment.

The team's 20 camera traps haven't yet recorded any elephants,

but they have started to reveal how rich this forest is.

This leopard is a good sign.

They will only live in areas

rich enough to support their varied diet.

Local villagers use the same paths as the animals.

That might explain why the elephants keep a low profile.

Gordon hopes his high vantage point means the elephants

won't even know he's there.

He has a long night ahead.

The expedition still has no evidence of healthy elephant herds.

They need to find groups of animals and they need to find young.

After 24 hours on his tree platform, Gordon hadn't seen anything.

OK. A whole night without a single elephant.

Could actually hear them off in the distance,

little bit of trumpeting and breaking, but it seemed like a long way away from here.

I'm just going to stay up here for the rest of the day,

and hope that maybe the daylight hours bring more success.

In Taung Lay, Ross is still searching for a second herd.

He's found what looks like a recent elephant trail.

Take a look at this.

OK, here we've got some... some elephant prints here,

these look quite small as well.

Small prints could mean calves.

It's intriguing.

So, to be sure,

I need to see the elephants themselves that made these prints.

It's the only way I'm going to get conclusive evidence.

Back at camp,

Chris is reviewing the most recent evidence from the camera traps.

Let's have a look at the pictures.

Asiatic wild dog, beautiful.

This is neat. I mean, this is very, very encouraging

to see this variety of wildlife,

all in a very small area.

Wow, look at that!

Can you believe that?

Finally, the camera traps have delivered a result,

concrete proof of elephants.

That was a very nice sequence of a male passing the camera.

Can't tell much about the animal,

but it's right in front of the camera,

it's having a drink of water, filling its trunk.

Spraying itself now and spraying the camera.

We got a little water on the lens already. That's always fun!

Water on the lens won't hurt it.

OK, here comes another one.

Images of elephants in several different locations.

It's a promising sign.

Uh-oh, this one's going for the cam.

It's trying to grab the cam with its trunk finger and twist it off,

they'll throw a coil around a small object like this...

Oop, there's its nostrils, but it's OK, the camera's safe.

Oh, it's got the strap on the cam.

Can you believe that?

What we see here is an excellent example of the elephant's curiosity.

It's trying to learn, "What is this thing that I didn't see here before?"

Curiosity of course is an indicator of intelligence.

In this case, the inquisitive nature means an obliterated camera.

The camera traps have captured images of two males,

but it's not enough.

Male elephants are loners.

Only the females and their young live in herds.

The team needs to find evidence that these female groups are thriving here

to make a strong case for protecting the forest.

Their hopes rest on Gordon and his tree platform.

Oh, there's a hornbill over there.

There's still no sign of elephants,

but at least he's seeing evidence that the forest is healthy.

Inside each of those fruits that he's eating is a seed,

and those seeds will be carried miles from here.

Elephants perform a similar function on the ground.

They eat fruit and disperse the seeds.

As elephants move about, they tear down trees and plants

to make pathways and clearings.

Everywhere they go they deposit dung

containing the seeds of their favourite food plants.

By clearing the forest,

they give new plants the opportunity to grow into the light.

All these different animals have different roles in the forest,

and none is more important than the role of the elephant.

They really are the engineer of this habitat.

They are the cultivators, the rotovators, the fertilisers,

the...they do so many things

and have shaped this forest to look the way that it has,

and without elephants living here,

it would be a very, very different place.

Elephants help create the environment

other animals need to thrive.

If these forests are protected for elephants,

all the other creatures in the forest will benefit, too.

Ross is still on the trail of a second herd of elephants.

OK, look at this. This is good.

This dung's really, really fresh,

probably only left here about one or two hours ago.

This means there are elephants definitely in this area.

They've flattened all this vegetation

on this slope and moving obviously up and down here.

This is really good evidence. I've got to crack on,

I'm hot on their heels now so I'm going to keep going up here.

This is the closest the team has been so far.

Then, without warning, the elephants are there.

TRUMPETING

There they are.

Get out the way.

Oh, my God, did you see that?

There.

Here they are.

That was nerve-racking.

I'm shaking.

They were so close.

As fast as they appeared, the elephants are gone.

They just appeared out of nowhere.

And that was... that was nerve-racking.

They were moving quickly as well, moving so quickly through here,

probably, I'd say, a good running speed for a human.

I've just see them moving along these thin trails

through these forests so quickly,

and they can just come up on you like that

and you would not know about it.

There were several animals, moving at speed.

This is evidence of at least one group of elephants.

But there's still no proof they're successfully breeding.

There's still no sign of calves.

Time is running out.

While the team keeps searching on the ground,

Chris decides to search from the air.

I'm hopeful that we're going to see some trails, some elephant trails,

maybe some disturbed vegetation, thick bamboo breaks,

places where the elephants have been feeding in the bamboo,

that should stand out.

Oh, look at this, fresh dung.

Definitely very, very fresh, still very, very damp.

Good, eh?

Chris finds several cleared areas where elephants may have fed, but no sign of the animals themselves.

Even with a balloon, Chris is no closer to knowing where they are.

There's just 36 hours left.

It's beginning to look like Ross's encounter may be the best evidence they'll find.

I actually saw them... saw them with my own eyes.

-Five elephants tearing past us through the forest.

-Wow!

I was hiding behind a tree at the time,

-obviously a bit scared.

-Fantastic.

Does this mean that potentially all of this area here,

is this suitable elephant habitat too?

It's moving in that direction,

it's telling us that this is suitable habitat.

We're not finding just a pocketed population here

and another one up here so far.

I mean, we've found two, two populations,

two groups of individuals, will you, that are, you know,

ten kilometres apart.

Chris believes there could be two groups of elephants

within six miles of each other.

It's a hopeful sign,

but it's a far cry from the direct sightings of mothers

with calves that they were hoping for.

I was thinking, you know, that they must be terrified of people to do that.

I mean, you know, I was there,

so it was only me, so what were they...?

I don't know. You know, it's strange because if they caught wind of you,

you'd think that they would move in the opposite direction,

but I have not had encounters of the close kind like this,

so I don't know what to expect.

I'm not sure that I'd want more of those close elephant encounters,

-to be honest.

-You don't want to get the larger sample size

-in that kind of experience, do we?

-No, no, no, no, need more trousers.

The team is learning more about the elephants here.

But it may be too little, too late.

Gordon is still on his tree platform,

but he's beginning to give up hope.

It's just past three o'clock in the morning

and there's no sign of any elephant.

I'm really struggling to stay awake now.

Not feeling that hopeful.

I think they've probably moved out of this area.

The night wears on.

He sees nothing.

It looks like sitting it out was the wrong call.

It's the final day.

The team has just 12 hours of daylight left.

The Chin trackers have found fresh signs north of Gordon's tree.

The whole team heads out in a last-ditch attempt to find them.

Should keep quite quiet now.

This looks like a very heavily used area. You can see it's quite cleared,

there's bent-over bamboo all over the place.

Looks like there's been a herd through here.

There's lots of signs everywhere.

You can see footprints.

Dusting, dust bowl, so to dust themselves,

and we're on a major elephant highway here.

Chris has also picked up a fresh trail.

This...this is an elephant track.

Let's stop and listen here.

We're going to stop here and just listen.

RUSTLING

I can hear them.

They're about...maybe 350 yards away.

TRUMPETING

Hey! Come, come.

You can see a big cow standing.

That is quite something.

There they are.

In 25 years, this is the first time I've seen wild elephants in Burma.

Gordon?

Gordon, this is Chris. Are you there?

Go ahead, Chris.

Gordon, we've spotted elephants just below us on the ridge.

Yeah, I've got them.

There's three of them that I can see,

they're quite far away from me.

That's fantastic.

Right.

I'm going to see if I can go a bit closer.

After two days stuck up this platform,

just when I thought all hope was lost,

we spot some elephants off in the distance.

Great!

This is exactly what I've been waiting for,

to see this whole herd together.

And do you know what? It is better than I could ever have imagined.

It's great,

despite the fact that they're a long, long way away,

it's just incredible to see these animals.

Such a tightly knit family group like elephants,

they spend a lot of time just hanging out together.

It's 10am, and it's already 35 degrees centigrade.

The elephants are moving from their feeding grounds on the ridge

down into the cool of the valley.

But even with a high-powered lens,

Gordon still can't see if the herd has young.

'Are you able to see any calves at all?'

No, there's...there's kind of an assortment of different sizes,

but the bamboo's coming right up to their, kind of, eye level,

so I just see the tops of their ears, their heads and their backs,

so there could be calves in amongst the bamboo.

The team has found two herds in the area,

one in Taung Lay and now this one.

But unless there are young, this herd won't survive for long.

To find out, the team must get closer.

Their only hope is Justine.

She's just southwest of the elephants.

She may be able to pick up their trail.

She needs to work out which valley they're in

and get as close as possible.

There's clearly lots of signs of elephants through here.

The danger is I don't want to get too close.

I don't want to stumble into them,

it's really hard to stay quiet around here.

I'm just going to have a quick look up this tree,

see if I can get a viewpoint, from up here.

Yeah, I can see down into the valley quite well now.

You can see loads of cleared areas

where elephants have been gathering and feeding.

That far bank over there, there's a really big patch,

You can see all the bamboo's been flattened.

Well, from the signs, it looks like

there's quite substantial herds moving through.

Until we actually clap our eyes on them, it's very hard to speculate.

But it does...it does look like there's a number of them,

certainly not just a couple of individuals.

There's a herd here somewhere.

But in thick forest, her chances of finding them are slim.

It's about four o'clock now,

it's getting cooler, so there's a chance

they might start coming back up on to the ridge line.

They actually have to come up and cross this ridge line

if they want to get into the other valley behind me.

We're heading off the ridge now,

and down into the valley below

in the hope that the elephants have descended.

It's a bit of a cat-and-mouse at the moment,

and I've no idea what to expect,

and it feels like we're just sort of chasing them,

but not ever getting close enough.

Possibly they've gone down,

or they may be going back up and we're going down.

It's like, it's hard to know where to go, where to be.

Well, let's see.

If Justine is right about their location,

she's now walking straight into their path.

This, we're getting into thicker bamboo,

and this is exactly the place where you don't want to meet an elephant.

It's utterly terrifying, having gone through that experience before.

You can't see anything, I can't even see a few feet ahead of me.

It's very thick and bushy,

and this sort of bamboo is really where you don't want to meet an elephant.

So we have to be very cautious.

Wild elephants kill hundreds of people each year,

often in self-defence after being surprised in thick cover.

Sh!

Sh.

Sh-sh!

RUSTLING

(Stop moving.)

Did you hear?

TRUMPETING

Justine needs to find a better position.

If they detect her, they will either flee or attack.

OK. We should go up, get some height,

be safer as well, and we might be able to look over the top there.

Let's do that.

From the sound of it, oh, they're about 30, 40 metres.

Right.

Go up.

She needs a clear line of sight to get her shot.

Even then, any calves will be hard to see.

Yes, yes!

I feel very, very, very, very lucky

to actually see them relaxed, at ease, it's just magical.

A herd like this is a very close-knit family...

..consisting of a big boss lady, the matriarch,

her daughters and her grandkids.

The males, once they get older, get kicked out,

they're told to go away and become lone bulls,

so the only males that will be in this group will be youngsters.

She's high above them, out of sight and reach,

and they have no idea she is there.

BUBBLING

Can you hear that sound?

Fantastic! It's a baby, I think.

If there ARE young, the herd is keeping them hidden.

Ah, the whole herd are climbing, climbing up the ridge.

They're in travelling mode.

They've had their bath, dusted themselves off,

and now they're ready for an evening, a night's feeding.

Then, at long last, the moment they've been waiting for.

Two very small calves.

It's a really, really tiny calf,

and it's trying to get on the back of one of the younger elephants.

They're so unbelievably cute, aren't they?

The team has their proof, a healthy, breeding herd, with young.

There's a calf that's trying to suckle.

What a lovely end to our stay here, we're really lucky,

but, you know, I think we've earned our luck.

We've had a few pretty hard days with no reward.

But it was well worth it, that was just magical.

It's a moment Chris has waited 25 years for,

a first-hand encounter

with the animals he's studied from afar for so long.

I'm going to land on a snake!

Hey, partner!

Congratulations, man.

As we say in old Virginia "You done good, you done good!"

Never before have I been so relieved to see an animal.

-It's great.

-It's fantastic.

The more time you spend up there,

the less, sort of, likely it feels that you're actually going to see them.

You're talking about an animal that spends the majority of its time in thick cover

in these tall trees, in the bamboo,

so I was thinking, "Well, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised

"that I'm not seeing them."

And then seeing at least ten right out in the open.

Well worth the wait.

Chris has been coming to Burma for decades

in the hope that he can help give the elephants here a secure future.

Now he has concrete evidence that they're thriving,

he is one step closer to his goal.

This is definitely a stronghold for wild elephants in Southeast Asia,

no question about that.

But Burma is also poised at a crossroads,

and there will be a development blitz here in the future,

we know that, and so it's going to be extremely, extremely important

for the leaders of this country to be vigilant

about the kinds of changes that accompany development,

because these forests

will be under threat unless their protection is guaranteed.

The team's challenge was to prove that elephants

are breeding successfully here.

They have accomplished their first mission.

They hope that their hard-won proof will encourage Burma

to protect these elephants and the forests they live in.

The alternative is to lose them forever.

It's more than I ever dreamed would happen.

Being able to see them bathing, grazing so clearly,

and yet feel safe myself.

It's just the best,

and to be here in Burma with a herd of elephants

which are probably forming

the last great population of Southeast Asian elephants in the world...

..it's very special.

Next time, the team ventures deeper into Burma's unexplored forests.

It's just a great unknown, I don't know what to expect, but I've got high hopes.

It's a quest fraught with hardship and danger...

We've got fire in front of us, and then fire here and then fire behind us.

BLEEP

..on a mission to discover creatures seldom caught on camera.

Look.

Oh, look, golden cat.

They will attempt to reveal just how rich Burma's forests are...

Oh!

This is a burying beetle.

These really stink, they stink like a decomposing corpse.

..and find out how much is at stake.

Burma's forests are not just important to Burma.

Burma's forests are important for the world.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd